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Privateer Press models have always been over priced, what saved them was knowing that whatever models I picked up, I could probably use pretty easily in my lists and the idea that a single warlock could change my playstyle significantly. It was all about the game. But they were always poor value for money, often the sculpts were ugly or badly proportioned, and sometimes the materials were really bad.

The move to theme heavy play sort of eliminated that, but it was inevitable. The sprawl of the game needed to be curtailed somehow.

PP pushed their luck too far and seems to have responded poorly to their first badly recieved major decision. It is a shame. I really loved the game in Mk2 and I have three largish hordes armies sitting gathering dust.

Azeroth wrote:
That is the point, caster kill becomes the only scenario. The other scenarios don’t matter which is what makes the game boring. If your opponent has outplayed you the whole game, then you should lose. If you build your army only to assassinate the enemy caster, then you should lose most scenarios. That is the point of a tactical game. The objective is whatever the scenario is. This is one of the reasons 40k and Legion are so much more appealing. Scenario is everything. Taking out one piece in the board should not win a tactical army game unless that was the objective. The fact that warmahordes is dying out in a lot of areas and participation at cons has dropped dramatically means that this game has some major problems. Those problems stem from the fact that this is an assassination only game. It is repetitive and boring.

I strongly disagree. Caster kill isn't the only scenario. And with respect, the perception that the game revolves almost solely around caster kill is a bit of a misconception, and one often stemming from newer players. First thing people were taught in my experience was learning to protect your caster. In my experience, in the hands of veteran players, caster kill could never be ruled out, but generally, not keeping an eye on the scenario or ignoring it just had you walking into a loss. Historically speaking, some of the strongest and most notorious casters in the game were control casters who utterly dominated in the scenario game. While there were assassination casters like Caine, and Kromac, you had scenario masters like the Haleys, deneghras, gaspies, old witch, irusk, etc. With respect, Saying it's an assassination only game is, in my opinion, not seeing the bigger picture.

I agree with you however that warmahordes is dying out in a lot of areas and that there is a drop in participation, and the game has some major issues - I disagree strongly that this stems from the assassination condition.

The multiple win conditions was always a feature - it meant you were never out of the game, and even if you were ahead, you could never sit back and relax either. It put an 'edge' and a 'tension' into the game that I found always kept me engaged when I played.

Adeptus Doritos wrote:So, if your boss wizard dies... game over?
Like, what stops someone from sniping him? That just seems... pointless.

It's kind of hard to do that.

Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Still, seems like the focus on the game is 'sack the quarterback' but with dice and monsters and steampunk mechs.

Essentially yes. Also queue comparisons with 'kill the king' in chess.

Apologist wrote:I'm an ex-player of Warmachine. The concept of brawling giant robots really caught my imagination, and I liked the aesthetics, but there were a number of things that put me off:
* Caster kill instantly ending the game: Like Adeptus Doritos above, this just struck me as a huge limiting factor. I can absolutely get behind the idea for certain scenarios, but for every game to include this just seemed a weird choice. It discouraged getting your Warcaster involved.

I disagree. Your warcaster was always involved, especially with spells and feats. And you could get involved physically with them, toy just have to be careful in protecting them from the counter attack. I often found comparisons with boxing to be more favourable than not.

Apologist wrote:
* Set group of characters: Being used to creating my own stories and characters in pretty much every other game I've played, it felt hugely limiting to have such a small, set group from which to pick. Worse, building a force really revolved around how particular 'Casters worked with other models in the faction – so it felt like you were hamstringing yourself if you picked up models that you liked; or if you wanted to play a certain way, you had to take a Warcaster that you felt no connection to.

I never found the set characters to be something that limited my ability to create my own stories or characters. It made sense, considering the setting to have named warcasters. In fairness to 40k it's a setting of millions of worlds and you can easily get lost in the sheer epic scale. Immoren was a bit smaller than western Europe - cygnar is a bit smaller than medieval France. In terms of warcasters, this was a setting where there were dozens of them, st most, at any one time. For me, I never felt it was appropriate to allow everyone to have their own unique caster. The world was far too small for that.

That said, there were more than a handful of people (including myself) that converted theirs from an existing caster. Can't remember who, but there was someone here who posted whose caster was 'Riza 'hawkeye' caine' and used his rules. For me, I did a female version of vlad 3 (Vladimir-Mira based on a daughter of the flame) and yes, the love story with sorscha was still better than twilight. I also did a female fenris using blood tracker bits (fem-ris). did you ever feel this was an appropriate route to try, if creating your own stories and characters was important to you?

Another thought, and again, something I did myself, was to steer clear of the warcaster as my 'character'. In the lore these are larger than life characters that turn up, demand whatever resources they need and march off, and the army's job is to accommodate this. To me, I could almost imagine warcasters as being like an albatross - lot of people tend to die when they turn up. To me, my focus was less on them, and more on the common infantry who get swept up in this. These were the characters that wrote the letters and notes that defined the 'gavin Kyle files' you'd read in no quarter. My 'characters' were the sergeants in a named regiment of the fifth border legion. It had its officers, it had its particular place on the front, it had its victories and defeats and it had its orders. Again - would this be something that could scratch your itch to write your own characters and stories?

Apologist wrote:
* Cost vs quality: The quality of PP's figures is hugely variable. Some of the later Warcasters were beautiful figures – amongst the best I've seen – but they were often accompanied by dreadful sculpts, produced in some of the least user-friendly materials.

It's a shame, because I liked the clarity of the rules, the setting, and a lot of the mechanics. Just wish they could have found some way to allow players to create their own Warcasters, and to put the focus more on the giant robots than the infantry and wizards.

The quality was... variable. I found it ranged from 'ok' to 'yeah, pretty good' with the occasional 'this is terrible' thrown in. The sculpts, looking back could be a bit all over the place, especially in terms of their proportions - the 'new' irusk1 resculpt for example was completely out of proportion when you compared the scale above the waist to the legs.

The rules clarity was great, the setting was/is amazing, but I was happy with the focus on warcaster characters. The focus system was a bit of a failure really, in terms of how it showcased the jacks. It took until the convergence of cyriss and ultimately mk3's power up rule to really make jacks have some presence..

For me what turned me off the game was I came back tovit after a period of playing more, shall we say 'interactive' games like gw's old lotr sbg and Corvus belli's infinity. It was jarring to go back to old school 'igoyougo' and felt completely disconnected to the game.

yep irusk II is my caster and he is very much an army support caster he burns all his focus keeping the army alive and fighting, he doesn't have time focus on caster assassination....now if my opponent walks into it I am not going to pass up the opportunity.

For me what turned me off the game was I came back tovit after a period of playing more, shall we say 'interactive' games like gw's old lotr sbg and Corvus belli's infinity. It was jarring to go back to old school 'igoyougo' and felt completely disconnected to the game.

Yes I totally get that, it is why I play so many different games, the feel of the games between classic battletech, heavy gear, infinity, DUST, 40K, warmachine, victory at sea, monster apocalypse, and B5 wars are all so different. it is good to have that variety so you appreciate each system for it's own style.

So, me and like, 4 friends started this game near the end of like, 7th edition. We really liked it. i only played MK3 but they played mk2 a bit. We loved the rules, the models and lore. but when we got to Steamrollers, it seemed like all fun was taken out of the game, there was no "Casual" people we could play with, even journeymen turned into "Im gonna make this into the best steamroller list i can"
And then themes came out, and the prices from the models in the themes came out, and we gave up. like really gave up.
Its such a cool game doing SO MUCH WRONG.
Ill never forget seeing my friend run into a cygnar list, then have Caine(Not sure which one) just snipe is caster across the board.

Nobody is making you play steamroller, I never have, I just play social pickup games. it's just one option in my kit when the regular group wants to play.

 aphyon wrote:
Nobody is making you play steamroller, I never have, I just play social pickup games. it's just one option in my kit when the regular group wants to play.

you sir then, is an oddity, cause steam roller is always the default in groups, and that seems to be the standard from what i hear across the interwebs.

 aphyon wrote:
Nobody is making you play steamroller, I never have, I just play social pickup games. it's just one option in my kit when the regular group wants to play.

They can "make" you play Steamroller by simply not agreeing to play anything but Steamroller. I seriously had someone say to me at one of the LGS in my meta, "We only play Steamroller here." He said he didn't have his list here, and I had suggested that you could just play a smaller gamer. That was his response. I was rather flabbergasted that he would dare say something to someone who was building Nyss Hunters right across from him (or, at least, trying to).

 Charistoph wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
Nobody is making you play steamroller, I never have, I just play social pickup games. it's just one option in my kit when the regular group wants to play.

They can "make" you play Steamroller by simply not agreeing to play anything but Steamroller. I seriously had someone say to me at one of the LGS in my meta, "We only play Steamroller here." He said he didn't have his list here, and I had suggested that you could just play a smaller gamer. That was his response. I was rather flabbergasted that he would dare say something to someone who was building Nyss Hunters right across from him (or, at least, trying to).

Honestly i think that is the biggest and most damning thing of the game. the Perception of the community is that in essence, its full of tryhards. ITs full of only tournament people that only play hardcore. Whether that is true or not doesnt matter, it is the perception.

Fun, perhaps it is because WM/H is like all the other games I play I select my faction and minis based on how they look or the lore not on competitive performance.,

with WM/H I play khador specifically because I wanted the clam jacks and gun carriage. I use irusk II as my caster because a veteran player told me he would be best used with the carriage.

it would be better from a competition perspective to use khador mechanics in my force but I use a gobber tinkerer instead because I love the mini.

Also it isn't my only game or my main game it is just one of many I play. of all the miniature games I play classic battletech is my first and longest played game going all the way back to the late 1980s when I was still in highschool. perhaps that lends itself the mindset of the Saturday gaming group where magic, 40K, star wars, and flames of war tend to be the most common games with a smattering of things like WM/H bolt action, DUST, AOS and others showing up from time to time.

Without a hardcore scene steamroller isn't a thing here the day I am at the shop(and I play at a FLGS that is like an hour away from PP HQ by car). I will parse my force down to play any point level as need be to play against anyone who wants a game. but I only have a max sized 75 point force.

Hi, I've never actually played a game of Warmahordes, but I did at one point back in 2016/2017 tried to start a Khador army. That was around the time I had started seriously building a 40K SW army, too.

So this is why I quit Warmachine: the kits themselves are really bad. I had the Khador starter box at the time, with two Warjacks and Sorscha. I even bought a box of Man-o-Wars and a mortar to go with it. I think I even bought three (different versions of) Sorschas. And I gotta say working with the resin of their Warjacks and Man-o-Wars were a chore. The warjack arms were heavy to glue on and the surface of the models were rather rough to paint on. As recall the resin were also more brittle than finecast, not that I've ever liked resin to begin with. I was afraid to handle Sorscha's scythe because I thought it was going to break. Overall the quality of the kits are lower than GWs.

Now obviously GW has their game up when it comes to product qualities. But I just couldn't stand the level of quality on offer here. I had been painting 1/72 plastic military models since I was about 14 before taking up this hobby and I must say the quality and materials of PP's range were quite underwhelming in comparison to all my previous experiences. I don't know if they've improved now, I've gone back to look at the products on offer on their website from time to time, and for Warmachine at least there are only 38/899 kits that are plastic. Of course I konw it's bloody expensive to get plastic kits made because of the multi-million dollar hardware that are needed, and resin and metal are best for small-batched productions. As it stands, however, I find resin and pewter kits always absolute struggles to work with and not enjoyable at all.

Meanwhile take Perry's miniatures for example: their kits look on-par with GW's aesthetically and detail-wise, and mostly come in plastic. Sure it takes a bit of work to get them off their stupid pre-cast bases but the plastic they use has good elasticity so they don't snap and break like PP's resin when I tried to cut them off. Perry kits have numbers and a decent amount of variations, and it's really not that expensive. And their website looked like it came out in the early 2000s.

What I'm trying to say is that, for me at least, PP needs to make their transition to quality plastic kits. Pewter and resin simply aren't beginner-friendly and casting with them are often worse than using plastic. If even Perry can produce large quantity of plastic kits of 40+ miniatures at £20, I don't see why PP can't produce plastic kits of around 12 small infantry figures priced at $45US.

I don't mind metal, apart from the price. Metal miniatures last longer and resell better. But metal was a strange choice for PP at first, because their huge heavy miniature designs really don't do well in metal. That said, some of my heavy warbeasts are among my favourite miniatures of all time. I figure they just did not have the investment capital to get plastic production up and running from the start, and now they are doing poorly financially I can't see it happening.

the redesigned kits are much better now but they do still use multi-material.

I got a new kit version of the behemoth and compared to the old one it is a fantastic improvement.

Honestly i think that is the biggest and most damning thing of the game. the Perception of the community is that in essence, its full of tryhards. ITs full of only tournament people that only play hardcore. Whether that is true or not doesnt matter, it is the perception.

That has always been both its strong point and weak point.

The tournament competitive players flocked to WM/H for that very reason and the casuals avoided it like the plague for that very reason.

 aphyon wrote:
Nobody is making you play steamroller, I never have, I just play social pickup games. it's just one option in my kit when the regular group wants to play.

Actually, I just tried to start an Oblivion campaign, and when people started to talk lists they were all focused on high performance, steamroller-level. lists. When I pointed out that maybe they're trying too hard I was being told to relax, that's casual play, so who cares if you win or lose?
So, apparently, at tournaments, you try your best because it's a tournament and winning is all it's about, on casual play you try your best because even if the opponent loose, he should not care...

Now, let me say that I do not very much care of winning. I care about having fun.
I honestly prefer to lose a close game, than winning a very one-sided game.
The problem with Warmachine is that when you lose, you'll often lose VERY BADLY. To the point that's is not fun. It has, at his core, some kind of rock-paper-scissor balance that makes balanced, close and tight games very rare.

Deadnight wrote:

Azeroth wrote:
That is the point, caster kill becomes the only scenario. The other scenarios don’t matter which is what makes the game boring. If your opponent has outplayed you the whole game, then you should lose. If you build your army only to assassinate the enemy caster, then you should lose most scenarios. That is the point of a tactical game. The objective is whatever the scenario is. This is one of the reasons 40k and Legion are so much more appealing. Scenario is everything. Taking out one piece in the board should not win a tactical army game unless that was the objective. The fact that warmahordes is dying out in a lot of areas and participation at cons has dropped dramatically means that this game has some major problems. Those problems stem from the fact that this is an assassination only game. It is repetitive and boring.

I strongly disagree. Caster kill isn't the only scenario. And with respect, the perception that the game revolves almost solely around caster kill is a bit of a misconception, and one often stemming from newer players. First thing people were taught in my experience was learning to protect your caster. In my experience, in the hands of veteran players, caster kill could never be ruled out, but generally, not keeping an eye on the scenario or ignoring it just had you walking into a loss. Historically speaking, some of the strongest and most notorious casters in the game were control casters who utterly dominated in the scenario game. While there were assassination casters like Caine, and Kromac, you had scenario masters like the Haleys, deneghras, gaspies, old witch, irusk, etc. With respect, Saying it's an assassination only game is, in my opinion, not seeing the bigger picture.

I agree with you however that warmahordes is dying out in a lot of areas and that there is a drop in participation, and the game has some major issues - I disagree strongly that this stems from the assassination condition.

The multiple win conditions was always a feature - it meant you were never out of the game, and even if you were ahead, you could never sit back and relax either. It put an 'edge' and a 'tension' into the game that I found always kept me engaged when I played.

No, caster kill isn't the only scenario, but you can win the game with caster kill in every game. That means you can tailor a list for caster assassination in every game no matter what the scenario that is active. If you try and build a balanced list so that you can win the flag scenario or controlling territory scenarios, you'll lose to assassination every time. They should change the rule that caster assassination ends the game in non-assassination scenarios. Killing the caster would still be devastating to someone's list, but it shouldn't end the game.

This isn't the only reason that warmahordes is circling the drain. I think another big reason is that PP seems focused on only their elite players. They seem not to care about casual players. Look at the events at Adepticon for example. The casual player gets Open play which is no different than pickup games which is basically meaningless unless you really want more dice. Everything else requires you to be an expert in the game. The events they are having are Champions (which still isn't even at half capacity out of 64), masters, narrative, and the team tournament (only masters is at capacity and that is only 64 people). All require massive time commitments, all require you to be an expert in the game.

Lastly, I think the game suffers because a 4x4 table is too small for the number of models on the table. They should really expand it to 6x4.

Azeroth wrote:
If you try and build a balanced list so that you can win the flag scenario or controlling territory scenarios, you'll lose to assassination every time.

This is completely untrue. I've been playing for over a decade and its never been true.

I do believe that casterkill is a double edges sword, I have won games with it, but it is also kinda......well frusterating.
I once saw a guy, in a hail mary to win, throw bombs at their opponents caster and boost all damage. He killed the caster with really lucky rolls, This was while she was surrounded by beasts.
While it was a coner case, i can see it being frusterating to have your entire army there, then lose cause one singular model died

Drawing a distinction between a game and it's community is the sort of thing that's correct but completely irrelevant to an end user. Warmachine doesn't switch too well to casual simply because it's such a mechanic heavy, information heavy game. You can't just play paying minimal attention without losing fast.

LunarSol wrote:

Azeroth wrote:
If you try and build a balanced list so that you can win the flag scenario or controlling territory scenarios, you'll lose to assassination every time.

This is completely untrue. I've been playing for over a decade and its never been true.

So, in the broader sense that for newer players, it seems like the enemy can win out of nowhere, this experience really rings true.

In the specific sense that most (or even many) tournament games end in assassination? Not really. Even when you see games end in assassination, a lot of those are simply the counterstrike after a failed assassination run.

Azeroth wrote:This isn't the only reason that warmahordes is circling the drain. I think another big reason is that PP seems focused on only their elite players. They seem not to care about casual players. Look at the events at Adepticon for example. The casual player gets Open play which is no different than pickup games which is basically meaningless unless you really want more dice. Everything else requires you to be an expert in the game. The events they are having are Champions (which still isn't even at half capacity out of 64), masters, narrative, and the team tournament (only masters is at capacity and that is only 64 people). All require massive time commitments, all require you to be an expert in the game.

I rather disagree. They were putting out all sorts of stuff for casual/narrative players for a long time (and still do), but unless you can get your local meta to buy in to them, then good luck being able to use them.

Polonius wrote:Drawing a distinction between a game and it's community is the sort of thing that's correct but completely irrelevant to an end user. Warmachine doesn't switch too well to casual simply because it's such a mechanic heavy, information heavy game. You can't just play paying minimal attention without losing fast.

I'll tell my Battletech group that they are playing the game wrong because they are playing too casually.

Polonius wrote:So, in the broader sense that for newer players, it seems like the enemy can win out of nowhere, this experience really rings true.

A lot depends on introduction and the experiences of the new player. If the new player has any experience with chess, then they understand the concept of protecting a key piece. When they find out that key piece also has the value of the Queen as well as the target of a King, I usually see a brightness in their eyes at the thought . It's also one of the reasons why the Battlebox is the standard starting point, to introduce all those concepts which set WMH apart, such as Assassination.

You can't lose your king to luck.

Azeroth wrote:

No, caster kill isn't the only scenario, but you can win the game with caster kill in every game. That means you can tailor a list for caster assassination in every game no matter what the scenario that is active.

Indeed, you can play assassination themed lists - the game allows for the kind of variety. It's not a silver bullet though. if you don't play with an eye on, or at least consider the scenario implications, there will be every chance a control caster will simply shut you down and walk you into a loss.

Azeroth wrote:

If you try and build a balanced list so that you can win the flag scenario or controlling territory scenarios, you'll lose to assassination every time. .

This is false. Some of the best, and most notorious casters of each edition have been control casters, who excelled in controlling, and winning scenarios. For every story about Caine 2 gunning down your caster there's a dozen of Haley 2 or deneghra simply shutting down your army and wa.king away with the scenario. Saying you will lose to assassination every time shows a lack of understanding of the merit and value of scenario.

Azeroth wrote:

They should change the rule that caster assassination ends the game in non-assassination scenarios. Killing the caster would still be devastating to someone's list, but it shouldn't end the game.
.

I disagree, but at this point we are walking in circles but to me, assassination is akin to checkmate in chess. The multiple winning conditions was always one of the big parts of the fame that helped contribute to its better balance.

Azeroth wrote:

This isn't the only reason that warmahordes is circling the drain. I think another big reason is that PP seems focused on only their elite players. They seem not to care about casual players. Look at the events at Adepticon for example. The casual player gets Open play which is no different than pickup games which is basically meaningless unless you really want more dice. Everything else requires you to be an expert in the game. The events they are having are Champions (which still isn't even at half capacity out of 64), masters, narrative, and the team tournament (only masters is at capacity and that is only 64 people). All require massive time commitments, all require you to be an expert in the game.
.

I agree and disagree. To be fair to pp, throughout the years, they produced no end of content for casual players and narrative scenarios, and goofy one off 'fun' games. Thing was it wasn't picked up The problem wasn't that they weren't trying to attract casuals, the problem was that, especially towards the end of mk2, casual players stopped being drawn to warmachine. Whether that was the nature of the game itself or the reputation of the nature of the game itself. Or the community that was previously drawn to the game, or the community that remained after everyone else left, or whether the community had anything to do with it I said also up for debate. Pp made a lot of anti-retailer and anti-newbie decisions at the start of mk3 and basically raised the bar to getting in. I don't think it was entirely intentional though. The consequence was they haemmoragged players and were left with a small ultra-hardcore group around which they had to retrench. And at the end of the day, they are a business. You give your customers what they want. If pp's remaining customers are ultra-hardcore, that's what get produced.

Thing is, this can't work for the long term. It wouldn't surprise me to see pp keep WMH on life support, and with their new games, seek to draw in a new audience. The 'competitive scene' arguably, may be mined out.

Azeroth wrote:

Lastly, I think the game suffers because a 4x4 table is too small for the number of models on the table. They should really expand it to 6x4.

I don't think this will do anything. The game Will still revolve around that scrum in the middle of the board, with measurement counted by small numbers of inches, and as long as all the interactions take place within a 12-14 inch bubble around your caster, as long as the ranged ability of the game stays where it is, there is simply no use for any more space. Ironically, it would make more sense to shrink the size of the game to a 3 by 3 board, as all everyone does in turn one anyway is run forward 12 inches. Might as well just start forward.

 Charistoph wrote:

Azeroth wrote:This isn't the only reason that warmahordes is circling the drain. I think another big reason is that PP seems focused on only their elite players. They seem not to care about casual players. Look at the events at Adepticon for example. The casual player gets Open play which is no different than pickup games which is basically meaningless unless you really want more dice. Everything else requires you to be an expert in the game. The events they are having are Champions (which still isn't even at half capacity out of 64), masters, narrative, and the team tournament (only masters is at capacity and that is only 64 people). All require massive time commitments, all require you to be an expert in the game.

I rather disagree. They were putting out all sorts of stuff for casual/narrative players for a long time (and still do), but unless you can get your local meta to buy in to them, then good luck being able to use them.

What are they putting out for the casual player? Under the assumption that you can actually find a local game store that carries Warmachine, what is attracting the local player? PP killed their forum, they killed the pressganger program, their con events are only for people that wish to spend at least 14 hours of the day playing nothing but warmachine - non of these are attracting casual players or attracting new ones.

On top of all this, they completely screw up their distribution and production so badly that stores can't even get in new product. ON TOP OF THAT, they constantly dump product in those mystery boxes that screws over local gaming shops. Basically they've devalued the product in local gaming stores to the point where it is almost worthless and almost no new product is flowing.

Also, as I understand it, PP used to have almost 100 employees and now they have around 30. Almost all the original core people have left.

Things are rotten in the state of Warmachine.

Azeroth wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Azeroth wrote:This isn't the only reason that warmahordes is circling the drain. I think another big reason is that PP seems focused on only their elite players. They seem not to care about casual players. Look at the events at Adepticon for example. The casual player gets Open play which is no different than pickup games which is basically meaningless unless you really want more dice. Everything else requires you to be an expert in the game. The events they are having are Champions (which still isn't even at half capacity out of 64), masters, narrative, and the team tournament (only masters is at capacity and that is only 64 people). All require massive time commitments, all require you to be an expert in the game.

I rather disagree. They were putting out all sorts of stuff for casual/narrative players for a long time (and still do), but unless you can get your local meta to buy in to them, then good luck being able to use them.

What are they putting out for the casual player? Under the assumption that you can actually find a local game store that carries Warmachine, what is attracting the local player? PP killed their forum, they killed the pressganger program, their con events are only for people that wish to spend at least 14 hours of the day playing nothing but warmachine - non of these are attracting casual players or attracting new ones.

On top of all this, they completely screw up their distribution and production so badly that stores can't even get in new product. ON TOP OF THAT, they constantly dump product in those mystery boxes that screws over local gaming shops. Basically they've devalued the product in local gaming stores to the point where it is almost worthless and almost no new product is flowing.

Also, as I understand it, PP used to have almost 100 employees and now they have around 30. Almost all the original core people have left.

Things are rotten in the state of Warmachine.

All of this is true. Pp have made a never ending serious of absolutely spectacularly boneheaded decisions these last few years. Such s shame, considering at the start of the decade they were basically the movers and shakers in the industry.

However I don't thinkthough that looking at the current state of play is a fair reflection of how pp have treated in the past. Remember, pp have run narrative campaigns through their books (escalation, for example), as well as frequently presenting casual and narrative scenarios through no quarter. They also staged events throughout the year (I vaguely remember a Halloween one where you had a couple of casters and an unending horde of spawning zombies and had to survive until dawn or something - I wanted to run butcher 2 into that horde! ). Through their pressgangers they also frequently pushed for escalation leagues etc.

I think it's fair to say that PP did reach out to casual players. This was just not something that was ultimately embraced by the community. Gw also getting itself into shape was also probably a factor when you look st the bigger picture.

I will say, part of the problem, and I say this as someone who's played for a decade and still plays, part of the problem, is that Warmachine... kinda... sucks... "casually".

I still kind of hate that label. I don't really play "competitively" either; I'm of the mindset you can be totally casual in a competitive game; but the ideas generally applied to the idea of casual just don't result in a fun game of Warmachine. A lot of it is just because at its heart its a game about constantly learning, and while you can step back on complications like the size of the game or scenario, you can't really unlearn the game itself. You may try to play with just a pencil, but you still know a million ways to kill a man with it and have to actively.... not do any of those things in a "casual" setting. It feels very hollow.

The competitive scenario and point limit essentially work together to rein in a lot of things, but they also make it hard to play smaller games. That's not to say the system can't support smaller games, just that currently, the scenarios really just don't. A 50 pt scenario packet would really make my day personally, but the facebook crowd for the game isn't likely to allow it.

Azeroth wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

I rather disagree. They were putting out all sorts of stuff for casual/narrative players for a long time (and still do), but unless you can get your local meta to buy in to them, then good luck being able to use them.

What are they putting out for the casual player? Under the assumption that you can actually find a local game store that carries Warmachine, what is attracting the local player? PP killed their forum, they killed the pressganger program, their con events are only for people that wish to spend at least 14 hours of the day playing nothing but warmachine - non of these are attracting casual players or attracting new ones.

Keep in mind that I was putting this towards the more narrative casual player than the casual player that only shows up once or twice a year at the store (which applies to me right now).

To that end, the Rampages and Oblivion are two examples of this. No Quarter released stuff at least once a quarter when it was monthly, then a little more than every other one when they went quarterly. Not a lot of people bought No Quarter, and few of those were doing so for the narrative scenarios that they included, which also included Company of Iron scenarios. Since No Quarter was dropped, they've had to figure out how to do so, and those narrative campaigns I mentioned were the outlet for that.

LunarSol wrote:I will say, part of the problem, and I say this as someone who's played for a decade and still plays, part of the problem, is that Warmachine... kinda... sucks... "casually".
...
The competitive scenario and point limit essentially work together to rein in a lot of things, but they also make it hard to play smaller games. That's not to say the system can't support smaller games, just that currently, the scenarios really just don't. A 50 pt scenario packet would really make my day personally, but the facebook crowd for the game isn't likely to allow it.

It's just as rules exacting as 40K 7th Edition was, but better built. It's not even as complicated as Battletech can be, yet, that is nothing but a casual game.

WMH can be played casually so long as the group of people playing it are willing to play it casually. Instead there are more people who are the type who push 40K into a hard competitive game.

I like the core of WMH... but I have never been invested to the point I was “good” at it. There are just soooo many interactions and special rules and wonky super combos.

I would personally like a version of the game that runs on d12’s instead of 2d6 as the primary. I wish it was quicker, and allowed multiple simultaneous attacks. Essentially, Id like a “battle game” instead of a very large skirmish game.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I like the core of WMH... but I have never been invested to the point I was “good” at it. There are just soooo many interactions and special rules and wonky super combos.

I would personally like a version of the game that runs on d12’s instead of 2d6 as the primary. I wish it was quicker, and allowed multiple simultaneous attacks. Essentially, Id like a “battle game” instead of a very large skirmish game.

How would you handle boosting with the d12? Keep it as just adding a d6 to the d12? What about Weapon Masters? If you are like the Butcher and have both Weapon Master and Boost, do you go straight to 2d12, or is it 1d12+2D6? How would you handle Critical Hits which currently rely on doubles to succeed?

Essentially, Id like a “battle game” instead of a very large skirmish game.

Yeah, I think that might be a good approach to solve a couple of problems – keep the current WM as the Warcaster-focussed, high-intensity game it is, and release a 'lighter' version version that allows for larger games; perhaps themed around the larger, non-Warcaster, battles that are mentioned in the background.

I'm picturing three or four officers per side as make-your-own characters from a set of faction archetypes; each with three or four Warjacks/units. With special rules stripped back to the bare stats, you'd have a very different sort of game that would complement 'proper' Warmachine, and allow people to field their whole collection.

If nothing else, it'd provide PP with a blank canvas to work on, while attracting back ex-players with big collections.

 Charistoph wrote:

LunarSol wrote:I will say, part of the problem, and I say this as someone who's played for a decade and still plays, part of the problem, is that Warmachine... kinda... sucks... "casually".
...
The competitive scenario and point limit essentially work together to rein in a lot of things, but they also make it hard to play smaller games. That's not to say the system can't support smaller games, just that currently, the scenarios really just don't. A 50 pt scenario packet would really make my day personally, but the facebook crowd for the game isn't likely to allow it.

It's just as rules exacting as 40K 7th Edition was, but better built. It's not even as complicated as Battletech can be, yet, that is nothing but a casual game.

WMH can be played casually so long as the group of people playing it are willing to play it casually. Instead there are more people who are the type who push 40K into a hard competitive game.

I really disagree with this. Warmachine is actually a really great game for competitive play, because the combos are so deep, and the mechanics allow for a lot of rich options. The problem, as Lunar Sol alluded to, is that once you learn all the ways a unit can be used, you can't just "unlearn" that. I played Cyngar in MkII, not at a super high level, but I could win a few steam roller matches. Even a basic unit like Gun Mages have a ton of tricks, that once you learn, you can't really unlearn. Usually when we talk about casual play, we mean that players are either learning the game, or playing mostly subconsciously, using muscle memory. 40k is a great game to play casually, because there's enough luck built in, and if you play a maelstrom or other scenario which favors reacting, the game comes down to who adapts better. In Warmachine, a slightly better player can play casually while the slightly worse player gives it his all, and the worse player would still likely lose. It's just a game that really, really rewards player skill.

Playing good warmachine players in casual games reminded me of the time I played in one of those simultaneous chess games where the top player players like, 10 people at once, and still wins nearly all of the games.

 Polonius wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

LunarSol wrote:I will say, part of the problem, and I say this as someone who's played for a decade and still plays, part of the problem, is that Warmachine... kinda... sucks... "casually".
...
The competitive scenario and point limit essentially work together to rein in a lot of things, but they also make it hard to play smaller games. That's not to say the system can't support smaller games, just that currently, the scenarios really just don't. A 50 pt scenario packet would really make my day personally, but the facebook crowd for the game isn't likely to allow it.

It's just as rules exacting as 40K 7th Edition was, but better built. It's not even as complicated as Battletech can be, yet, that is nothing but a casual game.

WMH can be played casually so long as the group of people playing it are willing to play it casually. Instead there are more people who are the type who push 40K into a hard competitive game.

I really disagree with this. Warmachine is actually a really great game for competitive play, because the combos are so deep, and the mechanics allow for a lot of rich options. The problem, as Lunar Sol alluded to, is that once you learn all the ways a unit can be used, you can't just "unlearn" that. I played Cyngar in MkII, not at a super high level, but I could win a few steam roller matches. Even a basic unit like Gun Mages have a ton of tricks, that once you learn, you can't really unlearn. Usually when we talk about casual play, we mean that players are either learning the game, or playing mostly subconsciously, using muscle memory. 40k is a great game to play casually, because there's enough luck built in, and if you play a maelstrom or other scenario which favors reacting, the game comes down to who adapts better. In Warmachine, a slightly better player can play casually while the slightly worse player gives it his all, and the worse player would still likely lose. It's just a game that really, really rewards player skill.

Playing good warmachine players in casual games reminded me of the time I played in one of those simultaneous chess games where the top player players like, 10 people at once, and still wins nearly all of the games.

Then you misunderstand what I said. I did not say that Warmachine cannot be played competitively, or is even worse played competitively, I'm just saying that competitively is not the only way to play it. There are many games that are played competitively but are also played casually, such as basketball. All you need are people willing to play just as casually, and that is the hard part in most metas right now.